The present invention relates generally to processing and data routine developments for a software application and more specifically to modeling and defining functional relationships in designing and developing banking related software applications.
Software applications can be developed in many different techniques. One such technique is to use a modeling technique to define the underlying guidelines. Modeling techniques provide for the initial definition of various components of the problems to be solved. From these definitions, interrelations between the components define a framework. These guidelines then, through the framework, provide for the software encoding, where the encoded software attempts to embody the modeled features. This general technique allows for the development of various types of software applications based on the underlying modeling operations.
One such area for software development relates to banking software applications. The banking applications include features directed to one or more of the various aspects of the banking business, such as but not limited to front end user interfacing, mid-level processing applications, back end financial transactions, among others. In existing techniques for the development of software applications relating to banking, modeling techniques have a very fine level of granularity. As the banking application includes numerous levels of applications, the application and underlying modeling technique provides for various levels of solutions to specific components or elements of the banking transactions.
For example, one area of a banking software application may include transactions relating to customer interface with an online or Internet-based banking access portal. The existing modeling techniques provide strategic and specific guidelines for solutions relating to this business activity. In some modeling techniques, the model may include specifically related aspects, such as back-end interface between the portal itself and the resident banking system. But, the modeling technique is very limited to this specific activity and therefore does not and cannot address concerns beyond the matter at hand, such as issues that might arise with a transaction closing portion of the banking application, for example.
The existing modeling technique is a very static solution offering limited flexibility. Another shortcoming of the existing modeling technique is the requirement of the model to be a time specific view of the banking application. Consistent with the static shortcoming of existing techniques, the modeling application requires the predefinition of a specific scenario and thus models a framework from that scenario. Based on the fine granularity level of the model, all extraneous components of the application need to be statically defined. This “snap in time” model requires developers to define how an application or banking scenario would look and then define the model around this definition. This static technique provides a short-sighted solution to an individually defined component but fails to provide a framework model for the full banking software application.
Additionally, this technique requires multiple modeling operations to each individual component to create the full framework. This technique can be very cumbersome and prone to errors. As each component is individually modeled, this requires not only a large amount of individual computation, but a large degree of static definitions for modeling terms and significant amounts of integration to generate a final framework. Additionally, any minor adjustments to the multiple models can have a significant negative effect on other related and un-related models as this may change predefined terms of these other modeling operations. Therefore, the existing technique is difficult to use to develop a full banking software application and does not lend itself to a dynamic modeling approach based on the fine level granularity used to model individual components.